She'd never met him before. Because each time he came near, she heard the panicked rambling of monsters that alerted her to hide or run away. No such luck, this time, although Alphys continued to ramble in panic, in a quiet voice.
The terrifying figure of the king of the monsters loomed across the lab. He was almost too big for the door, having to duck to come all the way inside, and he towered over everyone in the room, save for perhaps the former Mettaton Ex. He stepped inside the lab on huge feet, either one of which could easily crush Frisk's head, draped in a black-red cape and adorned with jagged gold armor.
His eyes were the same kind of yellow and bloodshot as Toriel's were. Even his face- some cross between a goat and a wolf in shape- was like Toriel's, with glinting sharp teeth (which she could see when he smiled,) and yet covered in coarse black hair on both his head and face, sprouting from him like an unkempt lion's mane. At a cursory glance it was easy to see that they were the same kind of monster, although King Asgore was clearly larger, broader, hairier. She wondered how deep their similarities, or even their differences, went.
It wasn't his appearance that frightened her, but rather the fact that after so long they met at all. Asgore only stopped and stared upon seeing her there, eyes a fraction wider. But the shock was gone after a few moments, and Frisk began to tremble the moment that he spoke.
"Howd'you do? I see you have company," he rumbled in the deepest voice she'd ever heard, glancing to the side at the shivering Dr. Alphys. He didn't wait for a reply, slowly moving step by step towards the child that shook against the opposite wall of the lab.
And Alphys stuttered as she stumbled along behind the giant monster, "Y-yes, sire, the human, I-I was just about to c-c-call you, but- h-how did you know that-?"
The red curve of his back hunched, like it was too much effort to stand on two legs. He chuckled, "Oh, I got a weird call from a skeleton some time ago. I called him back, and he told me his brother had been kidnapped by the human. He said I might find them here."
Frisk squeaked.
"I don't see the skeleton," Asgore said, looking around while Alphys squeaked too, "But that's alright." He scratched his black beard in three harsh, mechanical strokes. "I see the human. Perhaps he is close by. Or, perhaps, he is already dead. That is always possible."
And he stepped closer.
And closer.
Frisk could barely hold her pan out in front of her, she was shaking so much.
Asgore Dreemurr - 200 ATK, 200 DF
...
With every step he took, the child's eyes got bigger and bigger. "Y... your voice..." she choked.
"My voice?" Said Asgore. For just a moment he grinned wider, baring his fangs. "Your voice is so small. What is the matter?" And once the child said nothing, he stopped and stood straight, the distance between them almost crossed by half. Gigantic, white and clawed hands appeared as he drew his red cape aside. Covering his body was more armor, with that demonic symbol on his chest. "I asked what's the matter."
His tone was soft now.
Whenever she heard it before, in the dark, it was always screaming. Frisk realized that any minute now she was going to throw up, going to start crying, going to do something, and the calm in him would break into more screaming, like those times- it all churned within her gut and stomach. "Nothing," she mumbled, and wondered where the word had come from.
And so Asgore kept walking towards her, again.
Where was Blue Sans? Did he already leave? Even Alphys was curled up by her monitor, swirled eyes intense in her direction. Once again in his black boxy shape, Mettaton didn't move either and seemed to be imitating dumb machinery, his arms curled around himself like loose pipes. Asgore didn't look at any of them anymore, in any case. His eyes were only on Frisk.
"I have been mentally picturing when you might drop by for a visit," he said, quietly, sniffing the air with a lazy tilt to his head. "But you have never come. I take my tea alone, as always."
Frisk wielded the large side of her pan in front of her, as if it might be a shield for what was to come. Her legs shook, weak, too much so to even carry her from that spot.
Big deal, I'll just do everything over again, she thought, this time one of her own thoughts. Big deal.
Asgore drew out a gigantic trident from somewhere within his cloak, wielding it with both hands; his tone had not changed, "Not, of course, that I can do something as simple as offering you a cup of tea."
"I don't like tea," Frisk said in a voice that dropped and cracked, her face contorting as her shoulders shook.
"..." The big beast of a monster squinted at her, shifting his grip on the trident and clacking his big claws on the unblemished material. "I do not have any now."
The sound of her teeth chattering competed with the pounding in her head. Somewhere above, the light was starting to flicker, not enough to bring the lab even darker but just enough to irritate her eyes. "Oh."
Once more, Asgore bared his teeth. He almost looked like one of the wolves in the Canine Unit when he did that, if not for his floppy ears and massive horns. His eyes sparked. "It's just as well you never came to meet me."
His trident came at her as though out of nowhere, glowing a stark and brilliant blue; as it sliced right through her midsection Frisk uttered a scream, anticipating and thus feeling the stinging pain through her sides and stomach before realizing that the weapon hadn't done any damage at all. She was standing completely still, her little shivers aside, and the blue attack passed her over. Now, of course, she did move when her legs gave out and she came crashing to the floor, pan ringing while it struck the tiles beneath her.
Frisk bit back another scream and stared at the floor, tears gathering again. It was as if the whole world had gone darker and darker until this moment, when it was just her and Asgore in the black laboratory.
A trident that now shone orange smacked her in the face before she even had time to act. Frisk screamed even louder then, sent flying a few feet over the lab before thudding on her back. She just had enough muscle memory to hold onto the pan a little tighter when she flew, a reflex that proved wholly necessary over these past weeks.
-18 HP
It was hard to move through the pain, but she was distantly aware that the room around them was getting hot, red sparks of flame lighting and fizzling out all around the two fighting figures. Asgore stood over her even bigger than before, staring with those big bloodshot eyes. While his trident pulsated red before slowly returning to orange, the child suppressed a sob and reached into her pocket, pulling out the bottle of X Lemonade.
You down the X Lemonade.
It tastes okay, but smells horrible. You feel a little dizzy.
+12 HP
+1 HP
The orange trident came at her again. This time, it didn't slam into her.
No, what she felt was something wholly different. It ripped a loud shriek from her lips that she hadn't made in a long time, not since she had first fallen.
Two of the thorny ends on the trident stabbed deep into her shoulder, and then just as quickly Asgore ripped it out again. A spurt of blood, and the sound of ripping flesh, was almost enough to throw her out of consciousness if the pain didn't do it.
-14 HP
You feel that this is the end of your time here.
Frisk's thoughts were moving faster, or at least more coherently, than she was; the child had given up to her screaming, waiting for the pain to disappear. With nothing of more use than that lemonade, she was done for in the next turn regardless. Out of her blurry vision she saw the trident turn red and then orange again, the boss monster's eyes sparkling with magic, and he bared all of his fangs before her.
In just a few hits, he had won. She could see his victory imminent in that twisted snarl.
Instead of "Don't go," that voice from his mouth said, "Goodbye."
But the next time Asgore stabbed down his trident, it smashed against the tiles and shattered them instead. "Hah!?"
There wasn't any new pain, the old one in her shoulder ever so slowly vanishing as the Temmie Armor did its job. But Frisk was someplace dark, not in the big room of the lab anymore.
She didn't have the presence of mind to ask why, between the effects of X Lemonade and the wound still gushing blood on her shoulder. But through the haze, it was possible to distinguish the only light source in her dark new room- Blue Sans' blue eye, which returned to normal a moment after. Then all she could see were two tiny little dots of light, and on her other side a cracked-open door that showed the big room in the lab.
Just outside that door, "...Where did they go? Human, where did you do?" The voice gradually rose in volume.
"I-I-I-I have no idea-"
There was a little bit of dry, scraping coughing. "uh, orange means you're supposed to move," said Blue Sans after, taking hold of her hand. His bones were cold and shivery, just like her own palm. All on his own strength, he pulled her up into a sitting position, causing her to hiss. She didn't say anything to his remark except for in her head, shaking too hard to speak. I fucking know that you fucktard fuckwit fuck fuck I'm bleeding I'm bleeding just let him finish me off I'll kill Undyne and we'll leave sooner-
Blue Sans said something that she didn't hear. From the other room, Asgore roared, "Come out! I'm not done! And I can still smell you..."
"S-s-sire, um-"
Asgore's head turned in their direction, sniffing, and his eyes just caught on the door they both stood behind. Feeling cold in her head, Frisk's heart almost stopped, and Blue Sans' eye changed color.
"I smell you."
The lab disappeared in a flash and was replaced with dirty white.
The battle is over, it looks like somebody cheated.
The child was then even colder than she was a moment previously, and overcome with such dizziness that she had to lean far forward where she was sitting now, feeling bile rise in her throat. She swallowed it back down. "Ah... uuu..." Unearthly noises burbled from her lips.
"... ...looks pretty ba... ..." Blue Sans was still standing next to her, but had released her hand instantly. "... eal it, but maybe even anti..."
Frisk retched once, then twice more, but could summon nothing up the whole way to her throat. "...No..." she had the presence of mind to gasp. Heal it? No, healing hurt. Let the armor do its work. "...Fi-..." Where they in Snowdin? It looked like it. At least, they were near to it. She vaguely recognized the path, more blustery than the whole rest of the area-and that meant something. Her legs out of everything else were so cold, like they were going to freeze off.
Leaning over herself like this, she realized why.
And her fat tears brimmed over her eyelids, and her breaths became hitched and ugly sobs, and Blue Sans beside her took a few steps back. Her arm was already feeling a little better so she curled in on herself, stifling the loud noises that accompanied each gasp, hiding her tear-streaked face and preventing those same tears from freezing to her cheeks.
"uh," Blue Sans said while she cried into her manufactured darkness. "uh. uh. you okay?"
It might have been drowned out but she hoarsely replied, "Uh-huh."
jesus kid, where do you think you are? walk it off, that's what her own Sans would have said, no stuttering attached. She didn't mean to cry, she honestly didn't. And now, regardless of what she wanted, she was being so loud, shivering so hard that her muscles were quickly becoming sore as well as cold. what, you think i'm gonna feel sorry for ya? stop it.
No words or faces could frighten it away. Frisk had thought the days where she cried were over, but now... She felt as if she wasn't going to be able to stop at all this time.
Beside her, Blue Sans tugged on her sleeve. "uhhhhh, we should probably, uh, get inside? it's cold out here."
That was a good idea. It meant standing up, though, which made that impossible. The child just whimpered.
"uhhh. so, uh, any time that you're done, that'd be cool."
More than anything, she wished it was Flowey she was talking to- but who knew where he was. Her face was the only warm part of her now, and she was loathe to expose it, but she uncurled one arm to latch on Blue Sans' sleeve. Her mouth was pulled in a rictus grin of struggling facial features, and she kept her teary eyes squeezed shut. "... um..." She began, before another sob and welling shame broke her speech.
Blue Sans tugged limply on his caught sleeve. "?"
Frisk took a deep breath that almost spiraled out of control. "Um-mm," more tears, and now they were freezing to that side of her skin. Her voice dropped to a strained whisper. "I n-need a new pair of pants."
"-oh," he said back, and she curled back up. "uh. well, you clearly aren't going to find it out here."
Her obnoxious sobs rose to a wail inside her arms, and Blue Sans sputtered again, "well, uh, hey, it's okay, uh. i'll just, uh, use another shortcut. uh. i'm sure your sans and you are close to the same size. so. uh. yeah."
He grabbed her hand in his for another time, and she trembled. "uh, that sweater also needs washing anyway. it's kinda all covered in blood. we'll just. uh. clean you up and then i'll go throttle that anti-papyrus. sound good?"
So saying, and with no reply from Frisk but more sobs, they crossed the small space from that frozen road to Papyrus' house. Mercifully, Frisk heard no commentary from the intrusive thoughts inside of her head.
It might have been unfair of him to allow the new Sans to go over to Lady Toriel's house, particularly without sending Leo to warn Frisk first, but Papyrus was too great to not recognize a good opportunity when he saw it. (And was Leo even fast enough to make it to Frisk before Sans did?)
The minute that he walked out the door, Papyrus rushed straight to Sans' room. Usually the door was locked, but this time he found the knob turned easily. The room, of course, was just as he left it, with very little out of place. It might be that the other Sans wasn't sleeping here, or wasn't sleeping period, given what he himself had seen over the past few days.
This was a good thing! It meant that once he was able to get his Sans back, everything would be relatively the same as how it was when he left it. No bad posters or even different clothes- although Papyrus wondered if this was his first actual opportunity to clean this place up without his brother here to get upset.
No, no. That would be an underhanded thing to do.
Sans' room being pretty much the same was also a bad thing, though since it meant that there were no obvious clues about where this Sans came from or even, to be specific, what he was. There weren't even any clues about the other Papyrus that he talked about, which might be for the best since this Papyrus wasn't sure that he was interested in meeting him, to be honest. There were no new papers, no new socks, no new scratches in the drawers or anything under the lampshade. The dog that usually rode around in Sans' tornado was missing, but that dog came and went most days anyway. Still, after a minute Papyrus came up with an idea.
He spotted the blue hoodie, like the sort that his brother always wore in warm weather (because a regular t-shirt would have been too little apparently) and that the new Sans also had been wearing. Despite that, right now it was discarded on the greasy bed since the new Sans was off doing something in that fluffy coat- at least he didn't stoop to wearing two layers of outer clothing.
Since he had worn it for a while...
"Nyeh!" Papyrus said, before remembering that no one was here to listen to him. "-MAYBE THERE'S A CLUE HERE!"
This hoodie was, after all, what the new Sans was wearing all the time before he changed into the new coat they bought. It probably also belonged to his Sans, before the new one stole it. Snatching it up in his gloved hands, Papyrus hesitated and swallowed a lump forming over his vertebrae. He pressed the clothing close, and then resisted the urge to jerk it away when he got a whiff of it.
...It definitely belonged to his Sans first, and neither of the two had washed the darn thing in all this time. Mustard and ketchup and relish stains adorned the inside.
If his Sans wasn't wearing this, then what was he wearing? Surely he was keeping warm, wherever he was!
Papyrus didn't want to think about it.
The clothing felt a little heavier than it should, so with tentative hands Papyrus rifled through the pockets inside and out. For the most part he found nothing, and was even disgusted to find a piece of rotting hot-cat in one pocket, which he promptly threw away. (oh he was going to need to wash this with super-industrial soap before the other Sans got back.)
Still, though, in the last pocket he could find, he found something solid that was almost too small for his hand, and he brought it out with supremely narrowed eyes.
It was a cellphone.
Author's Note: The title of this chapter, Ragnarök, is based on what I think the intro to Underfell Asgore's fight would be- Bergentrückung, the original track name, is a title in another language conferring the archetypal "king in the mountain." Ragnarök is a title in another language conferring the end of the world by monsters escaping from imprisonment. And they both have umlauts.
That aside, I also have some questions I wanted to answer from a review! I don't think they're spoilery.
1. As far as I've decided, Frisk is able to reset everything and everyone in their own universe (which also means that time doesn't technically pass on the surface) although the ability is far from perfect. Flowey, for example, is able to remember things, some characters get little feelings based on their erased memories, and even objects can get displaced (and like in the game, some events- the "Fun" events- change supposedly arbitrarily.) That means some humans on the surface might be noticing the days resetting.
2. Fell!Frisk has been underground for roughly three and a half weeks, in contrast to Tale!Frisk who was only underground for a few days.
3. Yes! Functionally, aside from the aforementioned mistakes in the ability, resetting is no different from time travel.
I hope you all enjoy this chapter and the upcoming ones!
Next Chapter: A Massive Phone Bill
